Tag: mindfullness

You feel your heart beating harder and faster in your chest. A lump forms in your throat. The sound of the person talking to you fades into the background as your own thoughts and concerns become all-consuming. Maybe you feel a turning in your stomach or no longer feel content to stand still. You feel like you are losing your mind!

Well, there’s a little bit of truth to that. Dan Siegal, an author and professor of psychiatry, uses a fun analogy to break down the brain and how it works in situations like these. At the risk of oversimplifying, we’ll name two main characters in our brain: the guard dog (aka our brain’s limbic regions) and the wise owl (aka our brain’s cerebrum). The main role of the guard dog is to protect us from danger, and to do it fast! The main role of the wise owl is to help us think through things, using logic and reason.

In these moments when we feel like we are losing our mind, our guard dog has sensed danger ...

Springtime always seems to bring with it an energy and a busyness that comes out of nowhere, at least for me! Out of the darkness and chill of winter, life bursts forth, and suddenly I’ve got a million items on my to-do list and a full calendar. Our culture certainly supports this mindset of productivity, and I feel programmed to rate the success of my day based on how many things I’ve accomplished. And yet, in both the counseling office and my personal life, I continue to be challenged to re-examine my ideas about doing and being, about productivity, relaxation, and rest.

As I often discuss with clients (and have shared about here in a previous post as well), taking intentional care of ourselves is so important to our health and well-being. Sometimes self-care looks like meeting a goal or getting something done, but sometimes it looks like taking a day off or doing something we enjoy. Human beings were not made to operate at full speed 24/7 ...

A white Caucasian male in his mid-to-late thirties sits down for lunch in his mother’s kitchen. He slowly enjoys the sandwich he has made for himself, along with a handful of Sea Salt and Vinegar potato chips, (which for the sake of losing a few pounds) he knows he shouldn’t be eating. He has a set of headphones on, with which he is using to listen to his carefully constructed playlist on iTunes. To the left of his lunch sits his laptop, on which he is casually- and without much thought- working through his e-mails. He suddenly and unexpectedly receives an e-mail from his lawyer regarding his recent job-loss and the American’s with Disabilities Act and defamation lawsuit which ensued. He grows discouraged by what he is reading; and as he glances up, his eyes catch a hand of bananas. A flashback emanates, the likes of which he has never experienced. Before long his wife finds him blacked out on the kitchen floor, in a cold sweat, and hyperve ...